Mobile test illuminates risk taking

25 July 2014 Last updated at 12:09 By Melissa Hogenboom Science reporter, BBC Radio Science

New research shows that risky behaviour and impulsiveness can be reliably tested with specially designed mobile phone games.

Scientists found that four puzzles in The Great Brain Experiment app can reliably measure several different aspects of cognitive function.

Other games test our visual perception and our ability to remember things.

Scientists hope that results from thousands of participants will help them address population differences.

The research has been published in the journal Plos One.

By playing games participants can compare themselves to the other players while sending data back to the scientists.

"Each of these games is a serious scientific experiment," said Dr Peter Zeidman, a neuroscientist from University College London who was involved with the research.

"By playing the games people can not only have some fun but can contribute to the latest research in psychology and neuroscience," he added.

The "Am I Impulsive?" game, for example, asks participants to smash fruit that is falling from a tree using their fingers, but to refrain from smashing it when it is rotting, indicated by the fruit turning brown.

Harnessing big data

"That ability to hold yourself back from an action - trying to not do something - is a really important human ability and something we want to understand better.

"People with certain psychiatric illnesses or neurological problems have an impaired ability to inhibit their actions, for example ADHD or schizophrenia... If we can better understand just in the healthy population how people inhibit their actions then we'll learn a lot more," Dr Zeidman told the BBC's Science in Action Programme.

The team from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging questioned whether results from the games could be reliably included as part of scientific experiments and found that they were as good as lab experiments, with the added benefit of a huge sample size.

They compared the scores of 16,000 participants with similar experiments in a lab setting and they found that all four games gave statistically robust results. This was despite many of the distractions people may face while playing games on their mobile phones.

The scientists hope to answer questions about how memory, impulsivity or risk taking change over time, and they can also look at how these relate to each other.

Crucially, the way the app has been designed allows scientists to contact participants with unusually good scores.

Though the app is completely anonymous, it can send a message to a phone asking if a participant would like to come in for a brain scan.

Results from one of the games have already been used in research looking at working memory - when information is held for only a very short time, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

In this work lead author Fiona McNab from Birmingham University found that the brain deals with distraction in different ways.

"Understanding distraction in this way can resolve previous inconsistencies and lead to new discoveries, such as in schizophrenia and healthy ageing where working memory is impaired," said Dr McNab.

Predicting the future

While the initial analyses were based on four games, there are now four new ones available. "Can I predict the future?" is one of these and focuses on how people learn about how much reward is available in the environment and whether it might change over time.

So far 93,000 people have installed the app since it was launched and of those, 65,000 people's data is now being analysed.

The researchers said that over time, data from the games could be combined with medical, genetic or lifestyle information and could be used to learn more about how wellbeing relates to a persons' psychological characteristics.

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Absent fans get robot to do cheering

25 July 2014 Last updated at 16:31 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

A struggling Korean baseball team have invented a novel way to improve atmosphere at their matches - by bringing in a crowd of robot fans.

Hanwha Eagles supporters not able to get to the stadium can control the robot over the internet.

The bots can cheer, chant and perform a Mexican wave - but presumably not invade the pitch.

One expert said giving more fans a chance to "attend" was important for professional clubs.

This was especially the case with top football teams, Matt Cutler, editor of SportBusiness International, told the BBC.

"If you look at all the big clubs, you can't just get a season ticket - you have to sit on a waiting list.

"There is also potential monetisation. You can charge, even if it's a small amount, to give fans a different kind of viewpoint."

Football fan John Hemmingham, who runs the famous England supporters brass band, saw the funny side.

"What happens if a robotic fan misbehaves?" he joked.

"Gets aggressive, abusive, spills a drink... I can see it being fraught with danger. What if it sits in the wrong section? A robotic hooligan!"

Chickens

It is not easy being a Hanwha Eagles fan. In the past five years, they have suffered more than 400 losses - so many that fans of the team are regarded with a degree of sympathy, and have earned the nickname Buddhist Saints.

Less friendly opposition fans describe them as the Hanwha Chickens.

But those who cannot make it to the stadium now have the option of having a robot stand in for them.

As well as being able to control some robot movements, fans can upload their own face to the machine.

Sport for all

While the robots supporting Hanwha will be dismissed as a gimmick by most diehard fans of any sport, there are other, more serious attempts to help more people experience matches.

Continue reading the main story

The days have gone where people are completely engrossed in the match"

End Quote Matt Cutler SportBusiness International

As part of Japan's unsuccessful bid for the 2022 World Cup, the country said it hoped to re-create live matches using holographic technology in other locations. It would mean, in theory, that several stadiums full of fans could be watching the same match at once.

Development on the technology was halted when Japan lost its bid, with Fifa instead choosing Qatar to host the 2022 tournament.

Independent experts were sceptical the virtual reality plan could have ever worked - but praised the ambition.

In the nearer term, simple technology additions to stadiums and arenas are already changing how we enjoy sport.

"Within a short amount of time, nearly every Premier League stadium will have wi-fi," said Mr Cutler.

"Everyone's got a phone with them, checking other things. The days have gone where people are completely engrossed in the match."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Drone operator finds missing man

25 July 2014 Last updated at 12:36

A drone operator has explained how he helped locate an elderly Wisconsin man who had been missing for three days.

The operator said he had used his aircraft to survey the area, but ended up spotting the missing 82-year-old the old-fashioned way - with his eyes.

Even so, he suggested the kit had helped speed up the search.

Others, using dogs and helicopters, had failed to find Guillermo DeVenecia - who has Alzheimer's - after he went missing near Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

There had been some reports, including on the BBC, that said Mr DeVenecia had been spotted by the drone itself.

But the operator clarified what had happened.

"It was not the drone that actually spotted the missing man," David Lesh told the BBC.

"We were asked to search a large area of farmland with the drone. I covered three-quarters of it using three batteries, and the last quarter was a little too far for me to get good first-person view reception.

"We got into the car and drove to the other side of the property. As we pulled up to fly the drone one last time, we saw the man from our car a few hundred feet away.

"Had we had not seen him then, the drone would have seen him a few minutes later since he was in the search area we were given to look at. If nothing else, the drone helped us cover a huge area in a short amount of time that would have taken many volunteers hours to search."

A medical check revealed Mr DeVenecia was only mildly dehydrated after his three-day sojourn. He had thought he had only been out for a short walk.

Court challenge

The rescue comes at a time when the US air safety regulator is grappling with the issue of what kind of drone flights should be allowed.

A week ago, the Federal Aviation Administration was defeated in a case in which it had tried to ban another search-and-rescue squad from using drones made out of styrofoam.

Texas EquuSearch Mounted Search and Recovery Team - a volunteer force - has used unmanned aircraft on several occasions since 2005.

"To date, photographs taken by Texas EquuSearch volunteers using model aircraft have directly pinpointed the location of remains of 11 deceased missing people," its lawyer stated.

"The models have also helped direct volunteer resources in countless other searches - to help volunteers avoid hazards on the ground, to facilitate resource allocation to areas of greatest interest, and to save time during the crucial early hours of the search."

The FAA had tried to ground the aircraft on the basis of rules, dating from 2007, that bar commercial use of unmanned aircraft.

However, a judge ruled that the FAA's use of an email, rather than a formal cease-and-desist letter, to inform the team its aircraft were grounded had been inappropriate.

The agency subsequently told tech news site Ars Technica, that the court's decision had no impact on its authority to regulate the wider use of drones.

However, in March a US court found that the FAA rules banning commercial use of drones were put into force illegally because it had not done enough to solicit comment from the public. The FAA has appealed against that decision.

In addition, the FAA has said it will take another look at its rules governing drones and aim to put new rules in place by the end of 2015.

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Nasa seeks aid with Earth-Mars links

24 July 2014 Last updated at 13:33

Nasa is asking for help to get data back from its science missions orbiting Mars or roaming its surface.

The US space agency is acting now to close a potential communications gap that is set to occur in 2020.

It currently has no plans to launch orbiters capable of taking over data relay duties from existing, ageing spacecraft.

Nasa is seeking input from universities and companies about better ways to relay the data back to Earth.

Path to Mars

Nasa currently relies on two craft orbiting Mars, Odyssey and the Reconnaissance Orbiter, to pass on data beamed to them from the Curiosity rover.

The two spacecraft can send data back to Earth at a rate of about 2Mbps - much faster than the 500bps the rover can manage by itself.

Data relay duties are set to be taken over by two newer spacecraft that are due to arrive at Mars in 2014 and 2016. Nasa's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) satellite will go into service in September 2014 and Europe's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter craft will turn up in 2016.

Currently, Nasa has no plans to launch science orbiters to Mars beyond Maven - but there are plans to land more rovers on the planet, potentially creating a problem retrieving data gathered by the robots.

Commercial partners could help overcome this shortfall, Nasa said in a statement.

"We are looking to broaden participation in the exploration of Mars to include new models for government and commercial partnerships," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of Nasa's Science Mission Directorate, in a statement.

The partnership could mean Nasa tries novel ways to transport data. Future communication systems might make greater use of lasers, as they could massively boost data transfer rates.

Laser data transfer was trialled in October 2013 during the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer mission. During that test, data rates between the Moon and Earth hit 622Mbps.

"Depending on the outcome, the new model could be a vital component in future science missions and the path for humans to Mars," said Mr Grunsfeld.

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Qualcomm disputes China phone sales

24 July 2014 Last updated at 14:07

Smartphone chip giant Qualcomm is facing several setbacks in China, causing its share price to fall.

The US firm has revealed that it believes several Chinese manufacturers are misrepresenting the number of devices they have made to reduce the patent royalty fees they owe.

In addition, a state-run newspaper has reported that a Chinese regulator has decided the company's patents have given it a monopoly position.

That could lead to a huge fine.

Qualcomm has been under investigation by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) over claims that it had overcharged for the right to use its standard-essential patents and had abused its market position.

Standard-essential patents refer to innovations that are critical to a specification adopted as an industry-shared technology.

Qualcomm owns many inventions that lie at the heart of 3G, 4G and other wireless data technologies.

As a result, device manufacturers must pay it a fee to ensure their products can communicate with others devices even if they do not include any of the various chips that Qualcomm manufactures itself.

Potential penalty

The NDRC said in February that one of the complaints it was looking into was a claim that Qualcomm was charging higher prices in China than elsewhere.

If it finds the company guilty, it can fine it up to 10% of its local revenue for the past financial year.

Nearly half of Qualcomm's sales came from China last year, meaning its penalty could total $1.2bn (£723m).

The state-run Securities Times newspaper has reported that the watchdog has indeed decided the company has a monopoly.

However, the NDRC would first have to rule the company had abused its position to impose a penalty - simply having a monopoly is not prohibited in China.

"We have met with and are continuing to fully co-operate with the NDRC, as it conducts its investigation, but the timing and outcome of any resolution remains uncertain, as does the impact on our future business in China," Qualcomm's president, Derek Aberle, said during a conference call following the firm's latest earnings release on Wednesday.

He added that his firm expected it would have to make some kind of payment, but was not able to estimate its size at this time.

Misreported sales

While the probe continues, Qualcomm revealed that it was experiencing problems obtaining the fees it believed were due.

Mr Aberle told bank analysts that he believed some of the company's Chinese licensees were under-reporting the number of 3G and 4G devices they had made for local and international sale, and had ordered its own investigation as a consequence.

"We believe we will find that they are only reporting something less than 100% of their sales, and hoping they are going to be able to get away with it," he explained.

Although the firm reported net income of $2.24bn for its past quarter - a 42% rise on the previous year - and higher sales than Wall Street had forecast, its shares still fell as a consequence of the revelations.

Its stock dropped more than 7% after the Nasdaq opened.

Start-up cash

Perhaps in a bid to build up goodwill, Qualcomm also announced a pledge to invest up to a further $150m in Chinese start-ups alongside its results.

It also noted that it had recently taken stakes in a local education software firm, Cambridge Wowo, and a health app maker, Bohee.

The firm's previous investments include a stake in China's hugely popular smartphone maker Xiaomi, which uses its processor chips.

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Google quizzed over deleted links

24 July 2014 Last updated at 19:56 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Google has met data regulators from across the European Union to discuss the implications of the recent "right to be forgotten" ruling.

An EU court ruled in May that links to "irrelevant" and outdated data should be erased from searches on request, leading to censorship concerns.

The decision and Google's handling of the requests have been heavily debated.

The BBC understands that the search firm informed the watchdogs that it had now received more than 91,000 requests.

These in turn covered a total of 328,000 links that applicants wanted taken down.

Continue reading the main story

All this talk about rewriting history and airbrushing embarrassing bits from your past - this is nonsense, that's not going to happen"

End Quote Christopher Graham UK information commissioner

The regulators were told that the greatest number of these came from France, followed by Germany, then Great Britain and Spain.

Across Europe as a whole, the search engine - which has been critical of the court's ruling - has:

• Approved more than 50% of the requests
• Asked for more information in about 15% of the cases
• Rejected more than 30% of the applications

According to a report by Reuters, EU regulators were specifically concerned about the fact that Google had notified the owners of affected websites when it removed their links.

In one case this led the Wall Street Journal to write again about a Netherlands-based investor who had been linked to a sex workshop in 1998, after he had asked for the link to be removed from Google's results.

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Technology reporter Dave Lee explains how the controversial system will work

In another example, the BBC's economics editor Robert Peston brought attention to one of his blog posts that had disappeared from Google's search results.

Furthermore, a website has been set up to log examples of reported erasures.

Speaking to Bloomberg, the Irish data protection commissioner Billy Hawkes expressed concerns about this knock-on effect.

"The more they do so, it means the media organisation republishes the information and so much for the right to be forgotten," Mr Hawkes said.

"There is an issue there."

Reuters also reported that the watchdogs were concerned that the removed results could still be found on the international Google.com site even though they had been taken off local variants such as Google.co.uk.

Working party

The meeting in Brussels also included representatives from other search engines, including Yahoo, and Microsoft's Bing.

They met with a group known as the Article 29 Working Party, a gathering of data commissioners from across Europe concerned about the future direction of the "right to be forgotten" ruling.

Ahead of the meeting, the Society of Editors - a group representing media organisations in the UK - wrote a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron urging him to resist the ruling.

The society warned that a "vital principle" over the free publishing, and archiving, of information was at stake.

But UK information commissioner Christopher Graham said that some of the concerns expressed by newspapers and broadcasters were overblown - and that there may have been some media manipulation on Google's part.

"Google is a massive commercial organisation making millions and millions out of processing people's personal information. They're going to have to do some tidying up," he told Speaking to Radio 5 Live's Wake Up To Money.

He added that the censorship debate should not hide the fact that people should be allowed to move on from some incidents in their past.

"All this talk about rewriting history and airbrushing embarrassing bits from your past - this is nonsense, that's not going to happen," he said.

"There will certainly be occasions when there ought to be less prominence given to things that are done and dusted, over and done with.

"The law would regard that as a spent conviction, but so far as Google is concerned there's no such thing as a spent conviction."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Amazon reports $126m quarterly loss

24 July 2014 Last updated at 22:49

Amazon has reported a loss of $126m (£74m) in the second quarter and warned that sales could slow in the current quarter.

Amazon forecast third quarter sales of between $19.7bn and $21.5bn, which could mean sales growth of as little as 15% - well down on previous quarters.

Amazon has traditionally survived on thin profit margins, but investors have been reassured by strong sales growth.

But today's warning over sales has spooked investors.

In after hours trading in the US shares slumped by 6%.

Digital content

Amazon has been investing heavily to build up its business, including the launch last month of its first smartphone - the Fire Phone.

It has been developing digital content including computer games and TV shows.

In its conference call the company said that producing its own TV shows would cost $100m in the third quarter.

Amazon has also been spending money on improving its delivery systems which includes expanding Sunday delivery to 18 cities in the United States.

Web services

Another major cost of Amazon has been the building of its Amazon Web Services business.

It provides computer services and storage for businesses and has been growing very quickly.

To match that growth Amazon has been investing heavily in infrastructure and has hired "thousands" of staff for the web services operation.

All that has contributed to a negative net income of $126m in the second quarter, which compares with a loss of $7m in the same quarter in 2013.

That loss came despite a 23% jump in second quarter sales to $19.3bn.

Analysis

Leo Kelion, BBC Technology Desk Editor

Amazon's enjoyed strong growth in its sales over the past quarter - its 23% revenue rise on last year's figure was bang on target for Wall Street's predictions.

But what makes investors nervous is that its net loss was nearly double what had been forecast.

What's more, it has warned that it might sink further into the red during the current period.

In short, Amazon's growing list of investments is hurting its bottom line - at least in the short term.

Developing new products such as its Fire Phone, Fire TV set-top box and Dash grocery scanner haven't come cheap.

The company also pointed to the need to invest in the expansion of its web services division - the behind-the-scenes computing power it rents out to clients including Netflix, Nasa and the CIA, as well as smaller app creators.

On top of that the firm has rolled out Sunday deliveries in the UK and US, commissioned new TV shows for its Prime subscribers and expanded its operations in India and China.

Benefit of the doubt

In the past, shareholders have been willing to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt - foregoing dividends today for the promise of it being in an even stronger position to pay out in the future.

But they may be concerned about how many bets it is taking at once - this week's lacklustre reviews for the Fire Phone can't have helped.

The size of today's sell-off indicates that some at least want more reassurance - particularly since Amazon refuses to break down its numbers to reveal exactly how its different products are performing.

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Wikipedia blocks US Congress edits

25 July 2014 Last updated at 13:12 By Joe Miller Technology Reporter

Wikipedia administrators have imposed a ban on page edits from computers at the US House of Representatives, following "persistent disruptive editing".

The 10-day block comes after anonymous changes were made to entries on politicians and businesses, as well as events like the Kennedy assassination.

The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was edited to say that he was an "alien lizard".

One staffer said they were being banned for the "actions of two or three".

Edits from computers using the IP address belonging to the House of Representatives have been banned before, following similar acts of vandalism.

Continue reading the main story

Maybe someone at the House of Representatives better think about their IT staff"

End Quote Jimmy Wales Founder of Wikipedia

The latest block comes after rogue edits were brought to light by a Twitter feed, @congressedits, which posts every change made from the government-owned address.

'Russian puppet'

One of the acts highlighted was an alteration to the page on the assassination of John F Kennedy, which was changed to say that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting "on behalf of the regime of Fidel Castro".

An entry on the moon landing conspiracy theories was changed to say they were "promoted by the Cuban government".

Another entry, on the Ukrainian politician Nataliya Vitrenko, was edited to claim that she was a "Russian puppet".

The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was revised, describing him as an "alien lizard who eats Mexican babies".

However the edit that finally brought administrators to ban anonymous edits from the House IP address was made on the entry for media news site Mediaite, describing the blog as "sexist transphobic" and saying that it "automatically assumes that someone is male without any evidence".

Mediaite had previously run a story on the rogue edits from congressional computers.

Counter productive?

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, told the BBC that the incident did not surprise him, and vandalism has "always gone on and it always will".

But he said that the @congressedits Twitter feed may have been counter-productive.

"There is a belief from some of the [Wikipedia] community that it only provoked someone - some prankster there in the office - to have an audience now for the pranks, and actually encouraged them rather than discouraged them."

He added: "Maybe someone at the House of Representatives better think about their IT staff - they might be hunting them down this very moment."

UK government edits

Earlier this year, the BBC discovered that the phrase "all Muslims are terrorists" was added to a page about veils by users of UK government computers.

That followed a report by the Liverpool Echo which found that insults had been added to the entry for the Hillsborough disaster.

Wikipedia allows any user to make changes to a page, even anonymously.

However, the changes are policed by volunteers, known as Wikipedians, who can reverse false edits, and even impose bans on users who continually flout the site's editing rules.

Collective punishment

Wikipedians have been warning editors from the House of Representatives since March 2012, and moved to block the address for one day earlier this month.

On Thursday, the IP address was blocked for 10 days, but one staffer protested that they were being punished for the actions of a few.

"Out of over 9,000 staffers in the House, should we really be banning this whole IP range based on the actions of two or three?

"Some of us here are just making grammatical edits, adding information about birds in Omsk, or showing how one can patch KDE2 under FreeBSD."

Another user from the Hill was quick to dismiss suggestions that the rogue edits were made by elected officials.

"I think the probability is near zero that these disruptive edits are being done by a member of Congress."

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Google Glass rival has neck battery

25 July 2014 Last updated at 14:05

Chinese computing giant Lenovo has shown off what it hopes will be a rival to Google Glass.

The device, as yet unnamed, hopes to eliminate Glass's problem of short battery life by adding a separate power device around the wearer's neck.

The company has created NBD - a system for connected devices - to encourage other companies to make devices on its platform.

In 2013, Lenovo overtook HP as the world's biggest seller of PCs.

But the company acknowledged it needed help from other companies if the future of having an "internet of things" was to be realised.

"Right now there are too many kinds of devices you can develop for the Internet of Things. It's too rich. Not one company can do it all," said Chen Xudong, Lenovo's senior vice president, as quoted by PCWorld magazine.

Big challenge

The internet of things is the idea that objects all around us - be it smartphones, fridges, toasters or thermostats - are connected to the internet.

It paves the way for connected homes, where appliances can be controlled by apps, and devices can react smartly to their surroundings, such as the heating coming on when it knows you're almost home.

However, the big challenge facing the growth of the internet of things is a lack of compatibility.

Companies are making devices that connect to the internet, but due to a range of different systems and standards, the devices are unable to talk to each other.

The NBD system is Lenovo's attempt to solve that issue. As well as its own smart glasses, it is also is working on another device with Vuzix. Another product being worked on is an air purifier that can be controlled via a mobile app.

Any attempt to create a new system would come up against efforts from Google, who recently purchased Nest, a smart thermostat device.

Apple has also invested in the internet of things - it announced HomeKit, a system for developers to write programmes that can control devices around the house.

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Gecko sex satellite 'not responding'

25 July 2014 Last updated at 16:48 By Jonathan Webb Science reporter, BBC News

A Russian satellite containing geckos, fruit flies and mushrooms could plummet to earth if control is not regained, according to reports.

The engine of the Foton-M4 satellite, with several experiments on board, has stopped responding to ground control.

All other systems are intact, the Progress space centre stated, including "one-way" transmission of information.

The five geckos are in space for a study of the effect of weightlessness on their sex lives and development.

The Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, said the six tonne satellite could continue to operate on its own "for a long time".

A space expert cited by Interfax said it could stay in space for as long as four months.

The satellite was launched on July 19 but yesterday failed to respond to a command to lift into a higher orbit.

Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reported that "specialists are restoring stable connection with Foton and are providing for fulfilment of [the] planned orbital mission program".

"The equipment which is working in automatic mode, and in particular the experiment with the geckos is working according to the programme," Oleg Voloshin from Russia's Institute of Medico-Biological Problems (IMBP) told AFP.

The two-month experiment involving the geckos included video-cameras and was a "study of the effect of microgravity on sexual behaviour, the body of adult animals and embryonic development" according to the IMBP website.

The lizard sex investigation was among several planned experiments, including other biological studies of plant seeds and Drosophila fruit flies.

There was also special vacuum furnace designed to examine the melting and solidification of metal alloys in low-gravity conditions.

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